Who are the Cleveland kidnapping victims?

She was, by all accounts, a typical teenage girl, who wore her hair in a ponytail, had mild acne, liked to shop and loved rapper Eminem.

But Tuesday, the now-27-year-old Amanda Berry emerged as the hero of a remarkable saga in which she and two other women were kidnapped and held captive for years in a Cleveland home.

It was Berry, police and neighbors said, who had the presence of mind to hail a neighbor, slip through an obstructed front door with his help and place a frantic call to 911.

“Help me. I’m Amanda Berry. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years,” she said tearfully, before describing her alleged captor for the dispatcher.

The 110-pound, brown-eyed teenager disappeared at age 16 on April 21, 2003, while on her way home from her job at Burger King, according to police, local media reports and the television show “America’s Most Wanted,” which first featured her case the following year.

She was still wearing her Burger King uniform. Her 17th birthday party had been planned for the next day.

Berry was close to her mother and older sister, wanted to be a clothing designer when she grew up and began working at Burger King because she liked to buy things for herself, her “America’s Most Wanted” profile said.

Her mother, Louwana Miller, never gave up hope that the girl known as Mandy was still alive, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The case attracted national attention when Miller went on Montel Williams’ nationally syndicated television show in 2004 and consulted a psychic.

“She’s not alive, honey,” the psychic said. “Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call.”

After Berry’s mother died in 2006, there were occasional clues in the search for Berry, and police have conducted a number of searches over the years. All proved fruitless — until Monday night, when Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were rescued from the house in Cleveland.

Also rescued was a 6-year-old girl. She is believed to be Berry’s daughter.

Michelle KnightPerhaps the most mysterious of the three women who were rescued from a house in Cleveland on Monday night after years in apparent captivity is Michelle Knight.

Knight disappeared in August 2002 but was apparently not treated as a missing person because family members thought she had left home voluntarily. Little information was immediately available about her Tuesday. Even her age was unclear: Police said she was 20 when she disappeared, but local media accounts said at various points that she was 18 or 21.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Knight was last seen at a cousin’s house in Cleveland. Her grandmother, Deborah Knight, told the paper that family members had concluded that Michelle left on her own because she was upset that her son was removed from her custody. It was unclear why that might have happened or what became of her son.

But Michelle Knight’s mother, Barbara Knight, told the paper that she always considered her daughter to be a missing person and that long after police stopped searching, she placed fliers on Cleveland’s west side. Barbara Knight said she and her daughter were close and that the young woman would not have disappeared without even a phone call.

Gina DeJesusWhen she was 14, Gina DeJesus would walk nearly 40 blocks from Wilbur Wright Middle School to her Cleveland home, winding through thriving commercial areas, blocks dotted by churches and neighborhoods dogged by drugs and prostitution.

It was one of those treks that led to her nine-year ordeal in captivity.

DeJesus disappeared while walking home from school April 2, 2004, and was not found until she was rescued from a Cleveland house Monday night with two other women, capping an amazing saga that riveted the nation Tuesday.

The 5-foot-1-inch teen with long, curly dark brown hair was very close to her family and didn’t leave home much once she arrived there, according to local media accounts and her profile on the “America’s Most Wanted” website. The television show first featured her case in 2005.

The depth of the family relationships — and the pain caused by DeJesus’ disappearance — are starkly evident in postings on Facebook, a site that barely existed when she went missing.

In March, her aunt, Janice Ruiz Smith, wrote on a Facebook group dedicated to finding her: “To the person who took my niece Gina, please please let her go. I know deep in your heart, there is goodness. She has a family who loves her, and misses her very much. Please let her come home.’’

The posting added that Ruiz Smith would be putting up posters and handing out prayer vigil flyers.

Also in March, DeJesus’ mother, Nancy Ruiz, noted the upcoming nine-year anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance. “To all my loved ones, sorry for not being there for you,” she wrote. “Been ups and downs, but lives go on. Gina, I love you and miss you so much. . . all of us are doing the best we can, just hang in there.’’

In the days after DeJesus went missing, the family’s modest home turned into a media hot spot, according to accounts in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Television trucks were parked outside, and the mayor visited. But family members soon began to despair, when the frantic efforts to find her yielded nothing.

In an irony that triggered media reports and online commentary Tuesday, a relative of former school bus driver Ariel Castro wrote of her disappearance in 2004 for a Cleveland area community newspaper. DeJesus was being held captive in Castro’s home.

“For seven weeks, Gina’s family has been organizing searches, holding prayer vigils, posting fliers and calling press conferences,” said the article with the byline Ariel Castro. “Despite the many tips and rumors that have been circulating in the neighborhood, there has been no sign of her.’’

A public records search Tuesday showed the suspect, who has been arrested, and the article writer are related, but the exact relationship could not be determined.

Washington Post research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.